Henry Nkole Tayali (22 November 1943 – 22 July 1987) was a multi-lingual Zambian painter, sculptor, printmaker, raconteur and lecturer. He has been described as Zambia's most famous painter.
Biography
Early life
Tayali was born on 22 November 1943 to Edward Nkole Tayali (1914–1995) and Esnati Mumba Tayali (née Chola, 1923–1963) in Serenje in the British Colony of Northern Rhodesia (later to become Zambia), a town near the site of the Nsalu 12,000-year-old rock and cave paintings. His father, the first born of five children, had won a scholarship to study at a South African University, but never took it up because his own mother died suddenly, and he chose to stay and look after his younger siblings. In order to support them, Tayali's father emigrated from Northern Rhodesia to work in Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia, ending up in the Department of Housing and Amenities.
Education
Tayali first started painting while at school in Bulawayo in the late 1950s. He attended secondary school in Bulawayo at Mpopoma High School and during this time produced the work Destiny. The proceeds from the sale of his paintings were held in the Henry Tayali Painting Fund, administered by Trustees who included Eric Gargett and E. H. Ashton. The money in the Fund would be released when Henry was accepted at University (see also).
In early 1967, before his Cambridge 'O' Level Certificate results came out, Tayali left Rhodesia (the Southern was dropped when Zambia gained independence in 1964) for Zambia, and applied for a bursary from the Zambian Government - expressing an interest in Architecture with Art. With help from his father (who went to school at Lubwa Mission in Chinsali in Northern Rhodesia with the likes of Kenneth Kaunda (President of Zambia 1964–1991), Simon Kapwepwe (Vice President 1967–1970), and Wesley Nyirenda and others, and who lobbied the Ministry of Education at Ridgeway in Lusaka on his behalf), he was awarded a Zambian Government scholarship to study at Uganda's Makerere University in Kampala, where he graduated in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Shortly after Idi Amin seized power in Uganda, Tayali returned to Zambia and then started work at the University of Zambia where he joined the Institute of African Studies in Lusaka as a lecturer in African art and later as University Artist. In 1972, Tayali got a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) scholarship to study for a Masters in Fine Arts at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, West Germany. Tayali was the first recipient of the DAAD to be selected from south of the equator.
His professor, Gerd Weber, said of him, "Of all the foreign students who have worked in my class, Henry Tayali is by far the most talented of them all. His work constitutes a synthesis between the traditional African art, the tools and techniques of the modern era." (see also).
After graduating in 1975, and fluent in German (in addition to English, Bemba, Ndebele, and Ngoni), he returned to Lusaka to the Institute of African Studies.
In early 1978, Tayali returned to West Germany to embark on a Doctor of Fine Arts degree at the Akademie für Bildende Künste, but the arrangements did not work out and he returned to Zambia bitterly disappointed.
Marriage and family
In 1971, he married Regina Mary Birungi Kivubiro while still in Uganda, and just before returning to Zambia and they had a son in 1972, Rhodrick Tayali. Regina died in 1976. Tayali had a daughter in 1980, Katwishi Alanda Tayali, followed in 1983 by a son, Chaswe Angio Tayali, with Rosemary Kaluwa, whom he later married. Tayali's son Rhodrick is an object and interior designer - Diploma-Designer (FH) - by training and a graduate of the Fachhochschule Aachen, and is also an accomplished artist in his own right.
Tayali died on 22 July 1987 while visiting his eldest son and family friends the Moiks / Moik-Becker in Aachen, West Germany, after attending his youngest brother's wedding in Southampton, England. He was buried at Leopards Hill Cemetery in Lusaka.